Hershey Buys Privately-held Ripple Brand Collective; Updates 2016 Outlook

(RTTNews) - While reporting its first-quarter financial results today, Hershey Co. (HSY) said it has acquired Ripple Brand Collective, LLC, a privately held company based in Congers, New York, that owns the barkTHINS snacking chocolate brand. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The barkTHINS brand is largely sold in the U.S. in take-home resealable packages and is available in the club channel as well as select natural and conventional grocers. Annual net sales of the business in 2016 are expected to be in the $65 million to $75 million range.

For fiscal 2016, Hershey now forecasts reported earnings per share in a range of $4.16 to $4.23, adjusted earnings of $4.24 to $4.28 per share and net sales to increase around 1.5 percent, including a net benefit from acquisitions and divestitures of about 0.5 points. The outlook includes barkTHINS dilution of $0.05 to $0.06 per share.

Earlier, the company forecast full-year reported earnings of $4.18 to $4.23 per share and reported net sales to increase around 2.0 percent, including unfavorable foreign currency exchange of about 1 percentage point.

Excluding both unfavorable foreign currency exchange rates and the barkTHINS acquisition, full-year net sales are expected to increase about 2.0 percent. This is less than the previous estimate of about 3.0 percent, primarily due to lower than expected non-seasonal CMG growth over the remainder of the year.

On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect earnings of $4.34 per share for the year on revenues of $7.48 billion.